Tales from the Techside

While I work within the ‘traditional’ real estate structure, I am certainly not an apologist for the real estate industry or REALTORS® in particular, nor for the mortgage industry or any other sector of the broader whole. When I hear that the real estate industry is under assault from the media, I try to take a balanced approach and see both sides.

Some of the press that I have been reading, however, is so unbalanced that I cannot glean any value from it. Enough people have written about the 60 minutes segment that I certainly don’t need to add anything to shed light on that lopsided assault.

An article I just pulled off of Yahoo, however, caused me to sit down and bang out this quick post.

The articles title is “Tent city in suburb is cost of nation’s housing crisis.” Any reasonable reader of that headline is going to assume, as I did, that the article portrayed direct victims of the subprime meltdown, driven from their homes to band together in a makeshift tent city. Certainly the image that conjures is a poignant one, so I can understand the journalistic goal of sensationalizing the issue this way… juxtaposing homes and tents and envisioning a series of tent cities in every community as more foreclosed people leave their now bank owned homes.

The problem is, none of the 200 people in the ‘tent city’ have suffered a foreclosure. To quote the article: “…While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it’s just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.”

I personally think that is deplorable journalism. Like I said, I can understand and even admire the technique, while deploring the results.

I am not saying that it is not possible or even likely that people across the country may be so unfortunate as to find themselves in this situation after being foreclosed on. I am not even saying that the broader ramifications of the housing downturn cannot impact and cause greater incidence of this sort of sad phenomenon.

What I am saying is that as this country tries to decide if it is heading into a recession, we ought to be particularly sensitive to the fact that we are the authors of our own reality. If there were more headlines about the absurd costs of energy and profit taking in that sector, as opposed to real estate, then people would be writing articles with headlines about how “Energy exec drives past tent city of his own causing on way to deposit 12 billion dollar quarterly profit check.”

The skyrocketing costs of energy are as much, if not more to blame for the stalling of our economic engine, which in turn took the wind out of the housing boom. It is all a matter of how you spin it. As usual, however, the easiest target is the best. Why try to riddle through the complexities of macro economics and global econo-politics when there is an easy, familiar target.

Lets get real. Everyone has a share and a stake in our current economic situation. Have an automanaged 401k? Then consider yourself a part of the problem. Greed, from wall street to your street, doesn’t know professional boundaries.

That being said, I would urge anyone who can to consider a donation to a homeless shelter if they can afford to do so. Any bit helps, and despite my rancor at the sensationalism of the headline, the underlying story of expanding homelessness is all too real a problem.

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